Wednesday, August 17, 2016

"The
work involved to reach this level of competition is not work for me or Kris,
it's a passion, it's a passion for oneness in a sport that requires so much
from the both of us. It's my choice to do this game, it's my duty to make this
worth doing for Bratska and all the others in our family."

-
Chris Tucci

I saw
this facebook post a week ago and it contained a lengthy recap by Chris
Tucci about his experience competing with his amazing agility dog Bratska at
the European Open. These two lines really struck me. They struck me hard! Obviously
dog stuff is a passion for me, I love the sense of connection you get from
training anything with a dog. Agility takes that to another level,
flyball less so but also more so. Daily life, tricks, basic house
manners, well they are all about making a connection with your dog. Enough
about passionate oneness. What about that choice part?

The
way I see it, most everything related to dogs is about the human's choice.
You chose the dog (for the most part), you chose what you will allow the
dog to do, what it eats, how much it eats, where it sleeps, hell I even teach
mine where to potty & where on the tug they can bite. It's a lot of
choices to make...and almost none are made by the dog!

Over
the years I've really striven to accept dogs for who they are and not try to
mold them into something of my choosing. So Nikki, my wild child, is
embraced for her wild...but molded to be obedient and make the most of that.
Betty, fearful and shy, is embraced for her weirdness...but molded to be
able to function in the world. Nikki is an obvious dog to channel into
dog sports. Betty far less so, and I've had many internal debates,
frustration, and big doubt about choosing to make her go to classes, to compete
etc. How do you make those choices for a dog whose happy place is under
my bed? It seems to be a complex balancing act. I've done my best
to make leaving the bowels of my bedroom a worthwhile choice for Betty. I
pledged never to leave Betty alone at the startline, I promised not let Nikki's
barking anger me if she's doing everything else I've asked of her. I
tried to honor their choice to play with me by making sure I don't forget their
individuality. They have needs damn it!

Lately
I've been struck by the number of people who make a choice and do not consider
the dog in the equation. The more choices I give my dogs, the more they chose
to do what I want. That sounds contrary but I've also endeavored to make
working with me such AN ENJOYABLE choice for them, that they just about glue
themselves to me when it's training or work time. The rest of the time
they can "go do dog stuff". Aka, stand down dog, you are off
duty! (Thanks to Ron @ Pvybe.com for that term!)

So
how do we balance our choice and the dog's choice and frankly, our human desire
to make those choices their choices? Overall, I want every part of
training with me to be clear, concise and rewarding. I'm not trying to be
their leader, I'm trying to be a coach, who brings out the best in you and
teaches you how to continually advance. I also understand that there will
be communication break downs and frustration on both our parts. I'm not
going to punish the dog who is trying very hard to figure out what the human
wants them to do, especially when the human is clearly an idiot! If I was
your math teacher and kept tell you to solve this quadratic equation.
Now. Do it now. Now, no don't look over there, solve it!
Now. What would you do? I'm betting you'd clam up, cry, run
out of the room, yell at your teacher, or maybe just nod & smile while
pretending to write down an answer? Well a lot of dogs do that.
They sniff, look elsewhere, get up and walk away, do something else, or
just freeze up entirely. Hum. But a good teacher would explain each
step of the way how to solve that problem, and how to apply that solution to
future problems. So when faced with the same situation you know how to
solve for X! I want my dogs to feel smart & in control. If you
felt smart and in control, what would that translate as? I'm betting you
would be mighty CONFIDENT in your abilities!

Dogs
pose a special problem though, they don't speak our language and just like us
humans, they can all learn differently. So an extra challenge is learning
how they think. Setting aside their emotional issues (um, Betty), just
learning how they learn requires patience. For Betty, I had to calm her
fears so that she could learn. For Nikki, I had to help her learn to
control her enormously explosive energy level so she could learn. For
Sway, I just had to make sure she understood what I wanted, the first time! She is easily frustrated by repetition. For Ping...oh Ping. Let's
just say he'd be riding the short bus. So things had to be even simpler
and not change quickly for him to get it. All this requires patience on
the human's part. Most humans have no patience. So how about we
just get some compassion?

Compassion:

1.sympathetic consciousness of others' distress
together with a desire to alleviate it

Remembering
that our dogs have no choice but to live with us...let's keep some compassion
in how we train them. Let's make it worthwhile for the dog to choose to
work with us. Then let's be patient so they can build confidence and attack any problem we throw at them!